March | 2014 | Nail Smiles

After the bright green of my St. Paddy’s Day manicure, I needed my next design to be toned down to balance things out. I’ve seen a few other examples of white stamping over nude colored nails and decided that would be the perfect combination of subtle yet playful I was craving…also, I have a meeting coming up at work so super jazzy nails wouldn’t cut it (even though my bosses love my nail art for meetings with visitors I like to tone things down).

I’m really pleased with how the designed came out. The Sephora by OPI Bare To Be Different polish was very translucent. The first coat was so clear that I decided to switch to Milani Creme Brulee for the second coat. On my ring finger I used Sally Hansen Nail Prisms South Sea Pearl, which is a duochrome (color shifting) topcoat, but it didn’t photograph well. The color adds a green shimmer that can shift to pink depending on the lighting, but the photo just shows glare :\. Apparently it also looks fantastic over black, so I’ll share when I attempt that.

The stamping plate is QA65 from BornPrettyStore.com, which I got on sale for only 99 cents, regular price is $2.99, but keep an eye out because they regularly have amazing sales. The plate stamped clean and all of the images are great designs, I can’t wait to try the others. As you can see in the photo my nails are currently short, the images were large enough to cover my nails, one of my thumbs I had to double stamp for full coverage. If you have long nails you will probably need to double stamp with these images which are under an inch long.

Originally, my ring finger was just going to have a single diamond pattern, but since I stamped it on my nail REALLY off-center I decided to just stamp it all around and make a pattern. As Bob Ross would say, there are no mistakes, just happy little accidents. Or as I would say, it’s a mistake, but also an opportunity to get creative!

Either way I love it! I think the stamped pattern would also look really pretty in green with little flowers added or stamped and staggered in two different colors. Have you tried stamping over nude? How’d it turn out?

Sally Hansen Double Duty Base and Top Coat
1 Coat Sephora by OPI Bare To Be Different
1 Coat Milani Creme Brulee
1 Coat Sally Hansen Prisms South Sea Pearl on ring finger
Stamping with Sally Hansen Xtremewear White On (note, my bottle is older and thicker, stamps better than when brand new, but new still stamps well)
1 Coat INM Out The Door Top Coat and another coat after stamping
Stamping plate QA65 from BornPrettyStore.com

I’m not Irish and I don’t even like to get sloshed, but I enjoy Saint Patrick’s Day because

1. My favorite color is Green and Rainbows (yes, that’s the answer I give, don’t judge me)

2. I LOVE GOLD

3. I love clovers (today I wore my real 4 leaf clover necklace)

4. I’ve always secretly wished I was red headed and green eyed

5. I love me some cabbage and potatoes

6. I don’t like to get hammered, but I do still love a good beer

7. Did I mention rainbows?

The real big deal about today’s manicure is that it’s actually the first time I’ve ever attempted a gradient. I followed the basic process of painting white on all my nails, then painting 3 shades of green onto a cosmetic sponge and dabbing each nail.

I did between 2 and 3 layers per nail with the sponge. Then I added green glitter on the tips. For my ring finger I painted a coat of China Glaze Angel Wings over the entire nail, then added a shamrock.

The shamrock is 3 metal studs, which I painted over and then painted on the stem.

And yes, for St. Paddy’s day it should be 3 leaves because St. Patrick used the shamrock to teach about the holy trinity. Overall I like how it turned out, but I know I can do better. I have the excuse that I was on a time schedule because I did these right before heading out to a St. Paddy’s party!

To all my Irish friends, I hope you had some luck today, or at least some cabbage.